Today's confirmation that Apple is going x86 makes today a historic day in the industry. It may mean that Microsoft might see a few percent decline of their market share the next few years, but what about Linux? If Linux were to lose an equal amount of share it would alter its spread to the desktop, a spread that has been very positive so far.

If like everyone is saying Apple will use openfirmware rather than the traditional BIOS, in order to allow Mac OS X only to run on Apple hardware, then Windows will not work. Windows currently requires drive information etc. from the BIOS.